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Troutful, thanks for your post. I'm sorry to hear that your sister had a bad experience in high school, and I think that its unfortunate that kids go through a period in their life where everything they do is judged and made fun of by their peers. I think that the teacher is clearly at fault for not encouraging a more opened and welcoming environment to everybody in that class. If I were your dad, I'd like to think that your sister would tell me and I would go in and talk to the teacher and discuss my concerns. Being a teenager is tough, but it's not something people should dwell on their entire lives, and in my opinion its the parents' job to support their children through that period of their life. I don't think the society needs to be changed for that, I think that individuals need to be more responsible. To get back to engineering, my university does a program every semester where they bring middle school and high school students to campus by the bus load, and current students show them all the cool stuff they are working on and they do cool experiments under supervision. They brought EVERYONE out because engineering departments REALLY want more people, especially more girls, to matriculate and become involved. Also, I already mentioned this, but outside of mechanical/aerospace and electrical/computer science engineering, none of the other engineering fields are really male dominated to the same extent. Troutful posted:When you're an adult in college you have enough emotional maturity to put inconsequential poo poo (e.g. one-off rape jokes?) behind you, but at that point it's often too late to develop an interest in male-dominated fields as a newcomer, especially if you lack the sometimes-requisite mathematical background for programs in the hard sciences/engineering. quote:I'd be interested in hearing what posters in this thread who think it's totes fine and normal that women don't participate nearly as much as men do in certain fields think about female representation and performance in STEM fields in other countries/among different cultures (speaking as a student in the US). Two years ago, I was the only white, domestic female student in my 25-person advanced calculus class at a mostly-white school, which could have happened independently of cultural forces w.r.t. gender and math education but I kind of have my doubts. I personally think a lot of kids would benefit from a more regimented life style, but I don't think that people who quit a major, either because it's too hard or because of MRAs, will be really down with their parents riding their asses all the way through their teen years. Instead of the MRAs, the new boogeyman will be "my loving dad who is an rear end in a top hat and made me pick this bullshit major that I hate." quote:Also, not to be an rear end but I think some of you might want to at least consider the idea that your female friends might not be being 100% open/honest when talking with you about their experiences in traditionally or currently male-dominated fields. Nobody likes to sound whiny! Missouri Fever, I appreciate the history on the origins of the femenism movement and discrimination against women. However, I don't think Jim Crow laws have a lot of impact on today's standards in developing young engineers. I'm not denying that there is some form of a gender bias, and also that many women will encounter someone who will think less of them because they are women over the course of their lives. However, I think that maybe the reason people pick a major they want to study is because they find it interesting, and there is nothing wrong with that. Engineering schools already put in a ton of effort to raise awareness and recruit kids, both guys and girls, into their curricula. If the interest just isn't there, there's not a whole lot you can do short of forcing children to study these disciplines, and that would never fly in the United States. Here is my question: if you are a woman and in college right now, why don't YOU study mechanical engineering instead of forcing other girls to do it on your behalf, regardless of their personal wishes, in the name of gender equality? Pycckuu fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Apr 8, 2014 |
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Apr 8, 2014 12:08
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Pycckuu posted:I personally think a lot of kids would benefit from a more regimented life style, but I don't think that people who quit a major, either because it's too hard or because of MRAs, will be really down with their parents riding their asses all the way through their teen years. Instead of the MRAs, the new boogeyman will be "my loving dad who is an rear end in a top hat and made me pick this bullshit major that I hate." Are you seriously presenting the absurdly high pressure, family-loyal system of India as a good thing? Just like the MRA 'boogeyman', family pressure in India is a huge loving problem. Complete with victims who are socialised not to complain, because they're doing their familial duty and it's not about whether or not they're miserable. It's pretty easy to sit comfortably back in the west and lament lazy generations with their degrees in anime, compared to wonderful hard working foreigners. It works because we don't have to suffer the consequences of having two (freaking two?!) respectable career paths and a culture of shame that subordinates the individual to the whims of family.
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Apr 8, 2014 14:50
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I'm not sure how you extracted that message out of my post but thank you for the outrage. I'm sure plenty of Indians study business, economics, art, or classical writing. It's just that those fields are not prestigious like medicine or engineering, in the same sense that being a programmer was prestigious in the 90s, or how being a lawyer was prestigious in the 00s in the US. The point I was making is that a highly regimented system like India or a moderately regimented system like Spain produce more female engineers in areas that are much more male dominated in the US (mechanical, electrical) at the expense of their ability to change what they are studying if they don't like it. It's not a sexist system, because men and women face the same restrictions. It is a system that works for different countries but it won't work in the US and I don't want to have it in the US. I think giving young people a choice of what they want to study is a good thing, and if straight dudes don't want to design shoes that's OK, and if young ladies don't want to become electrical engineers or programmers, that's perfectly fine too.
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Apr 8, 2014 15:31
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Pycckuu posted:In engineering, you don't take any major specific classes your freshman year. In fact, the curriculum at my university was developed with the assumption that the incoming student never took a calculus class. So a lot of people would start their "engineering" careers by taking 2 semesters of calculus and 2 semesters of physics with a mix of humanities and general ed courses their freshman year. I don't know how much engineering departments stress that you don't need to know everything about math and physics when you start the program, perhaps they could do it more. I'm sorry your university has such lax standards and I'm sorry that you are a scrub who wasn't admitted directly into the major if you weren't taking relevant classes in your first year. What surprises me is that so many boys go into science and engineering. They will work extremely hard to be trained in skills that have become commodified whilst not getting the liberal arts education necessary to realise that they have more in common with the janitor than the owner. Why are men over-represented in fields where job security is non-existent, unionization is scoffed at, and a higher percentage of their productivity goes to profit others?
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Apr 8, 2014 16:45
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Pycckuu posted:Here is my question: if you are a woman and in college right now, why don't YOU study mechanical engineering instead of forcing other girls to do it on your behalf, regardless of their personal wishes, in the name of gender equality? I have no idea how you've read every post and still get stuck on the idea that "we don't have enough female engineers, so you guys would be happier if Gender Equality was accomplished by increasing the number of women in engineering". Also: Pycckuu posted:I think giving young people a choice of what they want to study is a good thing, and if straight dudes don't want to design shoes that's OK, and if young ladies don't want to become electrical engineers or programmers, that's perfectly fine too. In a discussion about gender roles you certainly have internalized them well enough. It's ok for Straight Dudes (manly men) to not want to design shoes (unmanly or feminine interest). However, the implication is that Gay Dudes (less manly men) or Women are okay with this unmanly interest? Perhaps you can point out what net positive to society there is for societal pressure to push men towards perceived masculine endeavours and away from the feminine ones. Again, you seem to think that the equality issue at hand is enrollment rates at post secondary. Yes, both men and women are not literally barred from going into one degree or another and thus have "a choice of what they want to study". You completely ignore the societal pressure and norms that highly influence what choices are acceptable or even considered by a person. Somehow you point out that your university brings in younger students to expose them to engineering in the hopes that women who have never considered engineering (because they have internalized the gender norms of "tinkering is for men" and never developed an interest in it) may look at their program and in the same breath basically say if women wanted to be in engineering they'd already be there. Unless of course you really do think that the issue at hand is getting more women in universities to meet some 50:50 balanced gender quota in which case I don't know what to tell say.
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Apr 8, 2014 17:37
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Eej posted:I have no idea how you've read every post and still get stuck on the idea that "we don't have enough female engineers, so you guys would be happier if Gender Equality was accomplished by increasing the number of women in engineering". quote:In a discussion about gender roles you certainly have internalized them well enough. It's ok for Straight Dudes (manly men) to not want to design shoes (unmanly or feminine interest). However, the implication is that Gay Dudes (less manly men) or Women are okay with this unmanly interest? Perhaps you can point out what net positive to society there is for societal pressure to push men towards perceived masculine endeavours and away from the feminine ones. quote:Again, you seem to think that the equality issue at hand is enrollment rates at post secondary. Yes, both men and women are not literally barred from going into one degree or another and thus have "a choice of what they want to study". You completely ignore the societal pressure and norms that highly influence what choices are acceptable or even considered by a person. Somehow you point out that your university brings in younger students to expose them to engineering in the hopes that women who have never considered engineering (because they have internalized the gender norms of "tinkering is for men" and never developed an interest in it) may look at their program and in the same breath basically say if women wanted to be in engineering they'd already be there. By the way, my university doesn't bring in younger students, they literally bring in children from middle school and high school because they want them to get exposure to different engineering disciplines and get them excited about learning math and science at school. The reason they do it is because most people in the United States, and kids in particular, don't have the slightest idea of what engineering actually is. This applies to both genders, not just women. There are a lot of idiots signing up for computer science just because they like to play video games and they think that's what it'll be. Also, I'm not sure about this "tinkering for men" narrative. It sounds like something someone who doesn't know anything about engineering would say, especially since fields like bio-medical engineering and chemical engineering are pretty close to being 50-50 in terms of gender enrollment. /edit: wait, you already told me you are a dude, you are the pharmacist guy. My apologies. Pycckuu fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Apr 8, 2014 |
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Apr 8, 2014 18:46
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Pycckuu posted:I mean, the discussion started with someone using lack of women in engineering as an example of gender inequality in society. People who actually studied engineering responded that its not a good example and we got into this "societal pressures" discussion. People who are engineers started the discussion.
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Apr 8, 2014 18:49
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Frozen Horse posted:I'm sorry your university has such lax standards and I'm sorry that you are a scrub who wasn't admitted directly into the major if you weren't taking relevant classes in your first year. What surprises me is that so many boys go into science and engineering. They will work extremely hard to be trained in skills that have become commodified whilst not getting the liberal arts education necessary to realise that they have more in common with the janitor than the owner. Why are men over-represented in fields where job security is non-existent, unionization is scoffed at, and a higher percentage of their productivity goes to profit others?  I can't tell if this post is serious or not.
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Apr 8, 2014 20:01
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Pycckuu posted:I think you are projecting your personal insecurities on other people. I wrote exactly what I meant to say, there is no sub-plot or ulterior motive here. It's good for people to pursue their interests, and they should not be prevented from doing so. You wrote exactly what you meant to say, and what you meant to say has been heavily influenced by you internalizing gender roles. quote:I really would love some specific examples of societal pressure preventing a young woman from pursuing her engineering career in the United States. Younger students = kids in middle school and high school I don't even know what exactly you got from what I said. Anyway, you have a very specific example right here in this very thread that you can question for further answers where Troutful talks about how she wasn't even aware of the possibilities of her working on a STEM degree until 2 years into a Classics degree.
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Apr 8, 2014 20:19
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Pycckuu posted:Be honest, that's the type of MRA people mean when they talk about MRAs online. Surely they're not using "MRA" as a blanked term for someone they disagree with? That's literally what they mean by "MRA". It's not somebody who's interested in gender issues relating to men, it's just a SJW concoction of every person they ever met and didn't like, and if at any point you stop loudly complaining about problems that can't be fixed, the MRAs will come in the night and take away your right to vote. And of course, college courses are filled with them. Not courses anyone has actually been on, you understand. Imaginary ones, out in the ether.
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Apr 8, 2014 20:48
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Troutful posted:female representation and performance in STEM fields in other countries/among different cultures (speaking as a student in the US). Here's some statistics from Finland: Amount of women by field, completed university degrees in 2012: Renewable natural resources sector: 50% Technology and transport sector: 24% Administration and commerce sector: 60% Health and social services sector: 72% Culture: 64% Humanities and education: 80% Other (I assume this is the National Defence University): 2% Total: 59% Also I'm finding the current trend of painting all engineers as MRAs very problematic.
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Apr 8, 2014 23:26
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Angstrom posted:As someone with an electrical engineering degree, I can't recall any time I noticed a dude from my classes being weird towards the few women in our classes. I really think this kind of thing is exaggerated by people who weren't in the major, or maybe had bad experiences in freshman classes and transferred/dropped out, because it definitely didn't seem prevalent at the higher level classes. Also, in graduate school, the number of women were roughly equal to men in my Electrical Engineering program. My engineering school did anonymous exit surveys of people leaving the school of engineering. I was involved in student government so we got the results of those surveys. Not one woman exiting the program said she was exiting because of the intolerableness of her mostly male classmates. The most common reason women exited the program was they weren't doing as well as they needed or wanted to. The second reason was after learning more about their discipline they couldn't see maintaining enough interest to do it as a career. These were the same reason men exited the program. The only remotely MRA thing I ever heard was from a non traditional student that felt like he had been been treated unfairly in a custody dispute because the family courts in my state were biased towards the idea that children are better off spending more time with their mothers.
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Apr 9, 2014 21:44
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What's with saying talking about things on the internet is worth nothing? I mean it's still an awareness thing.
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Apr 9, 2014 22:08
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In my experience the difference between a social justice warrior and a concerned citizen is that social justice warriors are fighting a battle and dammit they will fight it no matter who they're fighting against. There's a lot of preaching to the choir, if that also involved calling the choir unbelieving heathens or something. I had one friend who was like this. Apparently me being worried about another friend walking home alone at night was joking about rape and he got upset at me.
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Apr 10, 2014 01:06
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Eej posted:Anyway, you have a very specific example right here in this very thread that you can question for further answers where Troutful talks about how she wasn't even aware of the possibilities of her working on a STEM degree until 2 years into a Classics degree. What I got out of her post is that she wishes she knew about opportunities in STEM earlier, but I may be wrong so Troutful feel free to correct me (if you are still reading this thread). In any case, I don't think it's an issue of gender roles or sexism, but an issue of outreach. It would be good if universities did more programs at high schools in their states to generate interest in their fields.
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Apr 10, 2014 17:28
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When you have to do outreach to convince women to consider your program and you're pretty sure there isn't an actual biological reason that makes women less likely to consider it then what issue are you trying to resolve?
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Apr 10, 2014 20:35
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Outreach programs are not for women only, they are for everyone, and are designed to generate interest and recruit more students into STEM. Other countries (China, India, Germany) produce a lot of engineers, and the US needs to do the same if they want to remain the leader in new tech development. That's why STEM jobs pay a lot of money. If you mean on campus organizations like Women in Engineering that offer mentoring for young women who are in those fields, I don't think they exist to battle sexism either. Pycckuu fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Apr 10, 2014 |
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Apr 10, 2014 21:49
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In my experience, engineers are particularly unqualified to speak on almost any topic. Maybe how to build a box, but even then I'm probably looking elsewhere.
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Apr 11, 2014 12:47
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I, too, often dismiss opinions of people who actually have first hand experience with a subject, especially when they disagree with me.
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Apr 11, 2014 14:28
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I rest my case!
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Apr 11, 2014 15:35
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i'm pretty sure russkiy is an MRA gimmick poster
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Apr 11, 2014 16:41
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Numerical Anxiety posted:Yeah, but no one has really convincingly demonstrated that those brain structures have definite effects on predisposition that can be isolated from other determining factors. Do they matter? Probably, to some extent. How much? Well, that's yet to be figured out, if it ever will be, but certainly not enough to hold together the usual I haven't made any specific arguments besides that the structure of the brain affects cognition, personality, and disposition. Please don't dismiss my arguments with a pithy  emoticon.Look into neuroscience. A sociopathic person, for example, exhibits an amygdala with decreased responsiveness to stimuli. Mental state(all such factors that go into personality) and physicality(of the brain) are inseparable, and what is perceived to be purely mental can actually cause changes in physical structures. Theres a feedback loop between cognition and the physical function of the brain. That's not , it's just the way the human brain works. Men and women have different hormones released during puberty and their brains are structured differently as a result, creating broad trends in behavior.That doesn't mean a loving thing about what a person should be allowed to do, or about gender roles. It's just a biological disposition towards various behavior -- not a value judgment on those who don't fit gender stereotypes.
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Apr 11, 2014 17:37
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BigFactory posted:In my experience, engineers are particularly unqualified to speak on almost any topic. Maybe how to build a box, but even then I'm probably looking elsewhere. Same, but women.
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Apr 11, 2014 17:51
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ashgromnies posted:Same, but women. When you see women you look elsewhere? Edit: I tend to leer.
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Apr 11, 2014 18:22
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ashgromnies posted:I haven't made any specific arguments besides that the structure of the brain affects cognition, personality, and disposition. Please don't dismiss my arguments with a pithy hahaha calm down. literally means arguments that women and men are wired differently. Unless you're a neuroscientist I wouldn't jump to defend the idea that women and men are wired differently.
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Apr 11, 2014 18:37
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ashgromnies posted:I haven't made any specific arguments besides that the structure of the brain affects cognition, personality, and disposition. Please don't dismiss my arguments with a pithy Uh, you note that I acknowledged most of that in my post? The trick is that one can't draw convincing causal explanations between brain structures at mental phenomena or behaviors. That's not to say that that physical factors don't matter, but we don't know how much they matter, and deterministic explanations based on brain structures fail, even though pop science journalism loves this crap. In cases of trauma, an identical brain lesion can produce varying and sometimes even contradictory effects on mental functioning across individuals. One can't reject the statement that there are biological factors that influence our behavior. What we can't say is how it happens, and how or even if those biological factors can be divorced from environmental influences. As far as I'm concerned rests on ignoring the whole quite complex and still unresolved latter problem.
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Apr 11, 2014 18:55
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icantfindaname posted:hahaha calm down. Wut?. It's pretty hard to argue that men and women don't have very different brains post puberty at this point. Edit: No one can say how this affects behaviors. But differences do exist.
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Apr 11, 2014 19:15
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Before what I posted gets blown out of proportion I also want to say that diversified teams ship better products. I want women on my project teams because of the difference in perspective. If there were a reason that women didn't go to engineering school, then the structure of engineering education needs to change to better accommodate women. Differences exist, but our diversity is what gives us our strengths as a whole.
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Apr 11, 2014 19:39
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How topical! http://time.com/58743/cancelcolbert-activists-we-will-protest-this-until-it-ends/
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Apr 11, 2014 19:58
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Eej posted:When you have to do outreach to convince women to consider your program and you're pretty sure there isn't an actual biological reason that makes women less likely to consider it then what issue are you trying to resolve? This statement is basically just that there are underlying social factors as to why less women in the US graduate with engineering degrees. That's pretty much common ground, even for people who believe that biology is a lot more significant than we give it credit for. The problem with a lot of feminists is that everything from that point out is based entirely on their own assumptions and prejudices, which is what happened in this thread. If that was a jumping off point for going out and doing meaningful research about why women weren't going into engineering, that would be useful. Instead we have people who've never been to engineering school talking about engineering classes being a hundred people who look like Bray Wyatt. Wonderfully hypocritical. People just pile in and vomit these ridiculous theories over all these issues and it doesn't matter if there's a shred of evidence for it as long as it fits the narrative of either women "as a class" being victims of men "as a class" (second wave) or the idea that gender as a whole is some ephemeral language-game bullshit (third wave). All of this is ideology, none of this is qualitative evidence (save the actual lived experiences from people who went to engineering school, and which don't follow the theory), and therefore none of this is leading to any real social problem being solved. Do the SJWs actively care whether women go to engineering school, or are they just looking for something to support their own self-image of being an oppressed minority?
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Apr 11, 2014 20:49
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keyvin posted:Before what I posted gets blown out of proportion I also want to say that diversified teams ship better products. I want women on my project teams because of the difference in perspective. If there were a Yes, if there is an ethical concern here, it should be attached to the needs of the market! Because that's what we're ultimately serving.
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Apr 11, 2014 20:51
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Numerical Anxiety posted:Yes, if there is an ethical concern here, it should be attached to the needs of the market! Because that's what we're ultimately serving. The conversation is about studying engineering, the consequence of which is working in an engineering environment, and those usually benefit from diversity. Are you trying to do the Marxism-Lenenism argument derail thing? I don't get it. By the way, to whom it may concern, I'm still waiting on those rape jokes that make people quit engineering. It's been days and I'm thirsting for some "humor."
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Apr 11, 2014 22:32
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Pycckuu posted:By the way, to whom it may concern, I'm still waiting on those rape jokes that make people quit engineering. It's been days and I'm thirsting for some "humor." Please stop concentrating on the stupid opinions of a known idiot, you are causing the actual important points to be drowned in a sea of bullshit. You're like a reverse-SJW. There was a grand total of like two people arguing that overt sexism/misogyny in engineering was the problem instead of deeper, systemic cultural issues.
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Apr 11, 2014 22:42
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Didn't people use engineering as like... an example of a male dominated area that is misogynistic because its full of dudes? Then it turned out to not be true.
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Apr 11, 2014 23:05
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disheveled posted:Please stop concentrating on the stupid opinions of a known idiot, you are causing the actual important points to be drowned in a sea of bullshit. You're like a reverse-SJW. There was a grand total of like two people arguing that overt sexism/misogyny in engineering was the problem instead of deeper, systemic cultural issues. It's both.
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Apr 11, 2014 23:06
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BigFactory posted:When you see women you look elsewhere? I wouldn't ever ask a woman for their opinion on anything, except maybe how to maintain a box. And a lot of them can't even get that right, amirite fellas?
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Apr 12, 2014 10:39
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Pycckuu posted:The conversation is about studying engineering, the consequence of which is working in an engineering environment, and those usually benefit from diversity. Are you trying to do the Marxism-Lenenism argument derail thing? I don't get it. Tell me if you can see the difference. 1. We should interrogate the structural problems in a field that may discriminate against women/minorities, because ethically, discrimination is bad. 2. We should interrogate the structural problems in a field that may discriminate against women/minorities, because that discrimination keeps us from making better products.
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Apr 12, 2014 16:28
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FullLeatherJacket posted:The problem with a lot of feminists is that everything from that point out is based entirely on their own assumptions and prejudices, which is what happened in this thread. If that was a jumping off point for going out and doing meaningful research about why women weren't going into engineering, that would be useful. Instead we have people who've never been to engineering school talking about engineering classes being a hundred people who look like Bray Wyatt. Wonderfully hypocritical. People just pile in and vomit these ridiculous theories over all these issues and it doesn't matter if there's a shred of evidence for it as long as it fits the narrative of either women "as a class" being victims of men "as a class" (second wave) or the idea that gender as a whole is some ephemeral language-game bullshit (third wave). I don't think that there is anything wrong with having assumptions and prejudices, as long as you make clear that it is all opinion, but often with people who are really into social justice, these assumptions and prejudices are couched in fake scientific-sounding jargon. Also obnoxious is when universalist language is employed to obfuscate what are really special case rules designed to prop up minority groups. I personally think that most of their goals are noble goals, but a lot of the reasoning and justifications that they make to themselves and others I think is bogus. silence_kit fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Apr 12, 2014 |
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Apr 12, 2014 20:27
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I think this is all a trick question. You can just ask if anyone actually cares about if women have problems and when nobody raises their hand, problem solved!
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Apr 12, 2014 20:42
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Numerical Anxiety posted:Tell me if you can see the difference. I still don't get what you're trying to say. Can you make an elaborate post and explain it?
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Apr 12, 2014 22:08
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